Charleston prosecutors tossed weak cases without hurting safety, study finds

Efforts by prosecutors to weed out bad cases before they add to an already overloaded Charleston County court system slashed days in jail for certain arrestees without affecting public safety, according to a nonprofit working with the 9th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.

A new report from the Washington, D.C.-based Justice Innovation Lab analyzed the work of two part-time prosecutors assigned to look for weak cases involving low-level crimes. The study found that those prosecutors identified and removed such cases more than 150 days faster than through the traditional justice process.